


Nineteen Sixty Seven

by TourmalineQueen



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ace Aziraphale - Freeform, Asexual Relationship, At least they try, Aziraphale is Having Feelings about You Go Too Fast For Me, Crowley is also Having Feelings, Crowley moving into the bookshop is a gradual process, Heaven was not safe for Aziraphale to be Out and In Love, M/M, Neither of them are very good at Having Feelings, ace crowley, and they both have a lot of feelings about the last 6000 years, mentions of Heaven's abusive attitudes and behaviour, two ineffable idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24442495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineQueen/pseuds/TourmalineQueen
Summary: Aziraphale is having Feels about Holy Water and Crowley. Crowley has some Feels about when Aziraphale was discorporated. They manage to deal with it - a little bit, anyway, safely after the Nonpocalypse.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	Nineteen Sixty Seven

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of fics where Crowley is angry with Aziraphale after the thermos of Holy Water, and that always rubs me the wrong way. This is a little bit of how I see them dealing with it - safely, after the Notmageddon.

_It was 1967. Soho was papered with Crowley's invitations to join a caper in a nearby church. Aziraphale could taste his own despair, fear, and another emotion that he was deeply afraid of naming. It was a big emotion, and he was all but drowning in it. It felt like the aftermath of a bomb dropped on a church, and a demon dancing because his feet felt like walking on hot, stinging sand._

_Aziraphale knew what the posters meant, why the caper (yes, Crowley called it a caper, like he was Ian Fleming's spy character, and_ WHY _had Aziraphale ever thought that introducing the two of them was a good idea???) was to take place in a church, and he knew that even watered-down human Holy Water was dangerous enough to utterly destroy Crowley. And no human would even think that a little splash might matter, might, might take Aziraphale's favourite being in all Creation away from him for eternity, and Aziraphale needed to get ahead of this foolish caper of Crowley's._

_Aziraphale made the water Holy with his own celestial wages, chose his favourite tartan thermos to deliver the suicide pill to Crowley and prayed to Her that Crowley would realise what that particular tartan meant, that Aziraphale couldn't name the emotion that driving him to break one of Heaven's tenets. He hadn't seen Crowley in far too many years, but he needed to make sure he could see Crowley again. He needed to hear Crowley's voice._

_"Angel!"_

_Just like that. Except he hadn't heard from Crowley before he had filled the thermos._

_"Angel?"_

_Why was he hearing Crowley's voice?_

_"Aziraphale!"_

Ah, it was, in fact NOT nineteen-Sixty-Seven, and Aziraphale had been lost in thought.

"Oi! Aziraphale! Are you in here?" Crowley sounded panicked.

"Yes, dear, upstairs," Aziraphale called out, placing his old thermos back among Crowley's things. 

"Why the heaven didn't you answer me?" Crowley called irritably as he climbed the spiral staircase to the living area.

"Sorry, my dear, I'm afraid I - I was woolgathering. Head in the clouds, as it were," Aziraphale called back, feeling inexplicably nervous. He didn't realise he was wringing his hands until Crowley appeared and took his hands in both his own, his smile illuminating the room and instantly making Aziraphale feel much, much calmer.

"I - I thought - I thought you were gone, again," Crowley said, sounding like he was trying not to sound accusatory and still sounding a bit accusatory. Aziraphale softened immediately, and drew the prickly demon closer.

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry. I'm still very much here, as you can see. May I hold you for a moment?"

Crowley made a few wordless noises and nodded jerkily, already moving into the angel's arms. Angel and demon relaxed into their hug.

"Dearest," Aziraphale murmured on a gentle breath.

"Angel," Crowley grumbled.

"I was remembering the last time that old thermos was in my possession," Aziraphale said, after a few moments of quietly breathing together.

Crowley tensed and drew back, retaining his grip on Aziraphale's hands.

"Angel, no," he said, dismayed.

"Angel, yes, I'm afraid," Aziraphale replied, giving Crowley's fingers a gentle squeeze and smiling wryly. "I - I was very unkind to you, back then. In fact I was very unkind to you often, before Armageddon never quite... I just wished to tell you how very -" 

Crowley cut him off with a gentle shush and a kind smile.

"Don't, angel. There's no need to apologise to me. You weren't in a safe position, back then. Heaven wasn't safe for you, so you couldn't be safe for me - but you tried, angel. I understood then, and I still understand."

Aziraphale gave a tight smile. "I still feel that fear, as clearly now as I did then, that the water will destroy you, that Heaven will destroy you, that Hell will destroy you, and, after I gave the water to you the inexplicable fear that you might destroy yourself, and," he swallowed hard took an unnecessary breath and said the hardest thing he had ever said aloud, "my favourite being in all Creation might no longer exist."

Crowley threw his sunglasses across the room and looked Aziraphale in the eye. 

"Angel." Crowley searched Aziraphale's eyes. "Angel. Suicide was never an option. Not for me. Not in 1865 and not in 1967 and not today. And... The other thing you said. About me. That's mutual. You do know that, don't you?"

Aziraphale gave a small, tight smile and nodded. "Knowing all that doesn't stop the irrational fears, though. When the only other company one can imagine for all time is either angels who think there is something wrong with one or humans who, while valuable and delightful, have the lifespans of mayflies. There is no other being in all of Creation whose company I enjoy more, who seems to put up with my ... my quirks well enough, and who won't leave me, and who won't ... smite me or the humans that I love if I say the wrong thing. Can you imagine the fear I felt that you might be destroyed?"

"Well, sort of. And, when you were discorporated, I know I felt the same way. But. You weren't in a safe position to love me back then, and I knew it. And I was always willing to wait until you were safe, surely you know that?" Crowley asked, voice breaking on the word _discorporated_.

"You're too kind to me, Crowley, dear," Aziraphale said, with a watery smile. "And I don't believe I have ever apologised to you for my untimely discorporation, have I? I'm sorry, dear boy. You must have been petrified. And so sad."

Crowley shrugged awkwardly, and made a few more wordless noises. "Well. You found me again. And we're on our own side now. Isn't that what matters?"

"I suppose so," said Aziraphale. "I still feel very cross with myself for being so unkind to you - even knowing that it was utterly unsafe for me even to be your friend, let alone what we are to one another now."

Crowley nodded, his yellow serpentine eyes kind. "Just don't be too angry with yourself. It wasn't your fault that Heaven's full of pieces of excrement like Sandalphon and Gabriel."

"Thank you, dearest. Now, would you mind awfully putting this old thing away in one of the cabinets that I don't use? I'm having some very bad feelings about it and I doubt they'll go away for at least a decade or two."

"Yeah, alright."


End file.
